All the colors in monochrome
by Moonknight4217
Summary: The world is a dark and scary place outside the borders of the government controlled town walls. Especially so, since everyone can only use one type determined since birth. Collect eight badges enter the indigo tournament, accept a government job, or join the members of the gyms and Elite Four to prove you are the greatest at your type. The choice is yours to make.
1. Poisonous Birth

They say the two most important moments in a person's life is their first and their last. The former is true, because the first moment is when a person gets their starter.

Nobody knows if it really happens the moment a person is born, or if it happens sometime before, or very shortly after birth, but somewhere during that time, the baby gets a mark, the marking of their primary type, and their starter.

There are 18 types currently known to the world, 18 symbols, a tidal wave for water, a leaf for grass, a simple flame for fire and as on. The symbol could show anywhere on the body, even on inappropriate places, and the iris. It's not ink or anything, just a odd coloration of the skin, able to get scars, blisters, freckles, and all sorts of blemishes. If a type gets discovered, like fairy just a few decades ago, babies born after the discovery can obtain it.

Your type is a lottery. Genetics, timing, place, nothing has been found to affect your chances.

Your starter is also a lottery. Anything from a magikarp to a legendary pokemon could show up on the moment of your birth. That is your life partner. If one of the two dies, the other dies as well, and too much time away from your starter, or vice versa your owner can lead to illness, paranoia, and even insanity and possible death in extreme cases.

Nobody knows where the starters come from. One second they don't exist, then the next their cuddled up to the baby. Some say it's their soul, some say it's a gift from the god(s), others are still hotly debating what it just might be.

You can't catch pokemon outside the typing you are branded with, unless they can evolve into your type, like a Ralts into a fighting type, or a Togepi into a flying type, but until they evolve into your type, they are harder to train then most pokemon, and if you choose to not evolve them into their typing, like evolving a Ralts to a Gardevoir when you're a fighting type trainor, makes them flat out refuse to cooperate until you release them. Evolving your starter like that is not possible. You can try as much as you want, but it is physically impossible.

Now in a world with everyone having an advantage over someone else, how do people balance things out so that no certain person has too much power over another?

Thats for the trainers to figure out.

He scratched his purple fang. It was a nervous habit. The fang was of course the symbol that he was a poison trainor, and the symbol popped up on his wrist, the tip touching one of the arteries ironically.

His zubat, nicknamed Fatbat, beat its wings lazily above his head, resting happily on top top of his messy brown hair.

"Delsin Chatwin? Please report to the professor's office." A female aid announced from behind a desk. The reception room in the laboratory seemed more like a dentists' office then an actual laboratory, with a neat row of chairs that were always half full, and the hallway to the actual facilities between the desk and the wall.

He gingerly stood up, as to not disturb Fatbat, who was dozing contently on his ruffled up hair. More than half the people in the room didn't look up from whatever they were doing, and their partners dozed all on them, in the middle of the room with each other, or were in a playpen in the corner.

Delsin walked towards the hallway, which took a sharp left turn after the receptionist desk. Only a few feet away was a wide pair of glass doors, that were strongly foggy so that he could only make out blobs.

He opened the doors, and what he saw made him gasp, and the Zubat on his head yawn.

The laboratory wasn't a traditional laboratory at all, more of a indoor wildlife sanctuary, with only the desert and jungle environments being able to be seen from where he was standing. From the front of the lab, you could tell there was a fenced section that lead into the forest, but you couldn't see inside of it.

The professor himself was personally caring to a baby Sandshrew, a Porygon-Z floating near by, writing notes onto a clip board. It looked rather funny, its rubbery appendages grasping a pen specially made for its awkward grip.

On the professors scarred right hand, on the knuckle of his middle finger, was the six pointed star that signified a normal type trainor.

He removed the rubber baby bottle from the baby's mouth, and gently let it down to nap in the artificial heat created from the special lights overhead.

"Sorry about that. Your name is…?" He said, wiping off his pants, which picked up sand from his time caring to the desert pokemon.

"Delsin Chatwin."

"And are you a boy or a girl?"

"...?"

"Sorry. Government requires to ask stupid things, and get a verbal answer for your card." He said somewhat annoyed. He grabbed the clipboard from his porygon, and flipped to a different sheet and started scribbling down this info. "Can I please get your type and starter?"

"Poison and Zubat."

"That will be a bitch to train." He said nonchalantly.

Delsin was surprised to say the least about the professors unprofessionalism. He was the successor to the worlds greatest known professor Oak.

"So Professor Boojum…" Out of all the trees the professors picked up their nicknames from, he had to go with the oddest one he could find.

"One more second. You haven't found a rival yet… ammm…. age of…." He seemed to be asking a question though it sounded like he was continuing mumbling.

"Sixteen."

"Hometown of Viridian, correct?"

"Yeah."

"Ha, got one!" He said triumphantly. After scribbling down some more things, he handed the clipboard back to the porygon, and we both watched him drift over to a another door to the left of us, and open it with the hand not occupied.

"So just to gloss over everything again. Theres a gym leader in every town, including this one, each a different typing. Depending on your starter and your number of badges they gauge what difficulty to adjust themselves, though their real teams you have to fight to try to take their position from them are a lot more difficult than anything they will use for regular tests. You need a minimum of eight to enter the yearly indigo tournament, though more badges for the heck of it is allowed. Trainers with healthy pokemon can be challenged outside of towns, and penalties of refusing include loss of protection privileges of the outdoors, though if a trainer has injured pokemon you are obligated to assist them in anyway possible, losing a battle requires you to fork out one thirty second of your total cash, all of that stored in banks. You can transfer the money through trainor cards that can be replaced and lost or stolen ones terminated at any pokecenter. You can not challenge the same person in an official money based battle for twenty four hours." He said all of this in a bored way, obviously also required by the government.

The Porygon-Z came floating back into view holding something purple and rectangular. He came over and handed it to Prof. Boojum.

After a quick inspection he handed it to me with a smile. The borders were wide bars and purple, and the midsection was white and clad with black text. Delsins picture was to the right of the text, and the text was just his name, birthdate, hometown, account balance, starter, and typing. The card had a nice touch, in the top right of the card, there was a purple fang in a slightly darker purple and outlined in black.

"Now go run off and start your grand adventure in the majestic world of pokemon! I have things to do, one more trainor to register, then I have the date with the aid, and theeen I have to review the transfer of the Hippowdon."

The professor left to where the porygon came from, presumably the office, and didn't even tell Delsin to leave.

Delsin started walking towards the exit, waving at the aid who was working at the desk. She had a weary smile, and waved back alongside her also waving Skitty.

He opened the doors, and a long dusty trail back to the town center greeted him. Nobody else was coming.

Delsin took the card out of his pocket and stared at it. It looked no different, and he looked no different, but something was definitely different. He wanted to say he felt older, felt excitement, but in all honestly he felt melancholy.

He pocketed the card, stuffing it into the only pocket in his bag, along with his badge case, and pokegear. He had an athletic bag with a drawstring top. Buying an actual backpack was top priority.

He took a few steps, and had a sudden case of nausea. He didn't want to do it. He didn't want to go on the journey. Risk his life, rough it in the wild for weeks at a time, no real human companionship, just things that wanted to kill him and his bat. He sat down at a conveniently placed bench right outside the lab, a small fountain behind him providing a hissing sound of water hitting water. It was oddly calming.

He lay down, not caring about the fact that he could look like a bum with his drawstring backpack, and grabbed them and his zubat and hugged them both tight, falling into a dreamless sleep.

Someone poked him. The first thing that his brain registered was someone was poking his arm. Then the bag and zubat were still in his arms, and the wind was slightly colder than when he went to sleep. He kept his eyes closed and kept his breathing steady to make the monster that would dare wake him up get bored and leave.

But whoever it was didn't give up. They kept on poking him. He gave a grunt of annoyance. More pokes.

He finally opened his eyes, squinting in the sudden afternoon light. A tanish blob was staring down at him.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, his still sleeping zubat falling to the ground with a annoyed screech upon arrival. Standing above him was a girl, maybe the same age, maybe a year or two older then him. She had faded bleached blonde hair, cut short, minimal to no makeup, and no jewelry. Straight nose, blue eyes but a dark grey stormy kind of eyes, thin lips. She might have looked pretty with a smile, but currently she was scowling, and looking more "rip off your head" then "cutesy girl", and I felt like that was how she normally looked.

White shirt with a triangle made of black lines in the circle. All of the lines were a bit too long, so that little bits hung off of the sides. It looked like the symbol for a band, or a book cover or something. There weren't any words, and a denim jacket, unbuttoned, with the sleeves ripped off, and two or three recognizable band buttons above the breasts, and faded green shorts.

And she kept on poking him

"What do you want?"

"Hello to you, too."

"What do you want?" He wasn't in the mood for a chat with a weird girl. He was having an existential crisis.

"The professor said you forgot this, and to give it to your parents or guardians if I couldn't find you."

She handed him a little red device that looked like the thing hes always wanted from childhood.

A pokedex.

"He said it's already filled with information on all the pokemon currently known, along with how to properly recognize dens, what pokemon live in what areas, and how to take care of them, and much much more." She said, sounding somewhat underwhelmed.

"Cool. Thanks." He shooed her off with one hand. He knew his mom would scream at him for manners, but something about this girl was annoying him to no end. There weren't that many females in Viridian as that town is a big quarry zone, and the ones it did have didn't really break the mold. The girls were a stereotype, you had the smart ones, the pretty ones, the athletic ones, and even the punk and goth girls, but even she felt different from them. She didn't look like that to express herself, or to rebel from whatever, or like she was just "going through a phase." It was just her. That's who she was. She just a had a vibe to her that she was different and she didn't care what you thought about it, and it was slightly unnerving when she was looking at him like that.

"Let's have a battle."

"No."

"I want to battle you. Come on, it will be both of our first "official" battles." Her whole mannerism changed, and now she was shifting her weight from side to side, a maniac energy in her eyes.

He kind of figured he was roped into this battle no matter what he said, which would just serve to piss her off more.

"Fine. You only have one pokemon, right?" He sighed, resigned with the fact that he was probably going to get his ass kicked with only a non trained up Zubat.

"Yeppers. Nincada go!"

A white bug that was scuttling around at her feet dashed to the dusty road, which everyone guessed would serve as the main place for the battle field. Its trainer followed, and stayed behind it a couple of feet, the way you would see people on tv and movies do it.

"Fatbat. Go and try not to lose too badly." The zubat flew into his hair, and lifted a wing forwards, as if to say "onwards steed!"

He moved a reasonable distance away from the girl and her pokemon, so that they were at the stretching point of talking distance. A battle like this didn't need too much space.

"Nincada, use hone claws!" She shouted with childlike glee, totally unnecessary.

The bug rubbed its two claws together, making it shine an even darker brownish color. Its tiny wings fluttered, not being able to let him take off, and he looked like he wanted to beats Zubat's ass for being able to fly, its green and black eyes narrowing, and its front antennae was twitching with what Delsin guessed was anger.

"Fatbat, use supersonic."

Zubat took off his head, and screeched at a decibel that made Delsin's head throb for a split second, but Nincada seemed unaffected.

"Nincada us scratch!"

He lunged at zubat with his now deadly looking claws, and it managed to nick zubats wings, which pulled him down to the ground a bit, making the next pass easier to hit.

"Zubat, leech life!"

Zubat swooped down, and stuck two bangs into Nicada's backside, managing to avoid its flailing claws of death. Its fangs turned a greenish color, and the same greenish color seemed to come from Nincada's skin, as the puncture wounds weren't that deep.

Zubat unattached itself, and got back into the air, somehow untouched. Its wing seemed slightly better, but not much.

"Nicada use scratch!"

It came leaping for another run, and Zubat managed to dodge the claws, but still got sent crashing to the ground with the weight of the bugs back sending him down.

"I thought hone claws also made your pokemon more accurate?" Delsin confusedly asked/stated.

"It's supposed to, and it did with all the practice fights, but your Zubat has some crazy acrobatics skills."

"Zubat, use super sonic again."

Zubat screeched again, and this time it seemed to have some sort of effect on the Nincada, as it suddenly started twitching, like it was hearing something extremely annoying in his head.

He tried attacking Zubat without command by his trainer, but stumbled drunkenly, and hit his claw hardly against the dirt road.

"Zubat use leech life again!" Delsin was starting to get into the battle now that there was the slightest chance of a turn around.

Zubat shot to the dazed bug, but it was either playing stupid, or recovered really quickly, because a claw shot up, and smacked Zubat clear in the face. It scuttled over to the fallen bat, and raised its claw to Zubat's throat, looking up at the trainer like a puppy that did a trick and expected a treat.

"Good job Nincada! That's a good boy! Come over here!" The girl said, dropping to her knees to pet the bug.

Delsin smiled, despite his previous annoyance and sloth. He walked up to Zubat, and put the now napping bat on his head, who unconsciously gripped it for the most comfortable ride for both of them.

"Hey! Do you want to go to the pokecenter together? You need to give me money for my win!" She said grinning. She really did look better smiling Delsin thought, but he kept it to himself not to ruin anything.

"Fine, sure, whatever. I never got you name."

"Aponi."

"That's a weird ass name." He said, instantly regretting talking before thinking.

"I never got yours either, dick." She said defensively.

"Its Delsin, not Dick." He said with a smile and tried poking her back.

She grabbed his finger and bent it, a more sinister kind of smile on her face.


	2. Buggy Nights

"You're buying us lunch."

"No, you."

"I just payed you money for the battle. The least you could do is spend it on something important."

"But if you paid for it, it could be like an extra fee for losing your first ever battle!"

"That's extortion."

"You're being a little bitch."

"I'm not an infinite pool of money."

"If you got good at battling you could be." She said with a smug grin. She let the conversation drop there was payed for our meal, some weird salad things with meat and rice in them.

Delsin took the salad, and picked at it a little bit, walking towards the pokecenter, which was on the complete opposite side of the town from where the road to the laboratory was.

Aponi tried striking up conversation, but Delsin marched on, ignoring her outright. His plans were to ditch her as soon as possible, and any chance of getting attached to her was out of the question.

So the two marched on, both in a moody awkward silence. Fatbat was still out of it, and Nincada was somehow scuttling along at their speed.

"Delsin?"

No response. It was a cruel thing to do, but Delsin thought it was the right thing.

"Delsin?"

When would she learn? They had to severe themselves. Traveling together would just end up with hurt on both sides.

"Delsin!" She practically screamed, drawing much more attention that Delsin would like. She started punching him, not hard at first, but each one was getting more vicious. Nincada started batting his legs with the back of its claws.

"Young man, stop ignoring your girlfriend!" Some old man shouted from behind his newspaper.

"Yeah Delsin stop ignoring me!"

"You're not my girlfriend." He deadpanned.

"HA GOT YOU TO TALK!" She chanted, the punches continuing but with less force.

"You're a fucking twelve year old."

"And you're a dick."

"I already said my name is Delsin, not Dick."

"It was funny the first time, not as much now."

"Thats how I felt when I looked at your face. BURRNNNN." Delsin couldn't control himself. Something about this girl made him want to start an argument that he knew would end with sarcasm, not screaming.

"Why weren't you talking to me before?" She asked, her voice sounding somewhere between sad and murderous.

"Because."

"Because?" she arched an eyebrow.

"Because, talking leads to conversations, and conversations lead to bonding, and if we bond that means we'll have to travel together." he explained.

"I think you're overthinking this." she pointed out.

"Maybe, but I'm not wrong, am I? No. Sorry, you need to leave."

"That's awfully rude."

"I said 'sorry.'"

She took two steps towards him, a scowl falling naturally on her face. "Listen, mister bigshot. I can travel anywhere I want with anyone I want, and _you're_" she jabbed a finger to his chest. "not going to stop me. Capische?"

"God, didn't that word die out like twenty years ago?"

"You do know that's just a different language, right? Not like some made up word." She relaxed, crossing her arms and giving him a smug grin. She knew she'd won.

"..." He really did hate losing, but he felt like he was going to get used to it.

"So where we going?"

"I never agreed to you tagging along."

"I already said I can do whatever I want."

"Then I'll just be the most boring, uncaring travel buddy I can be until you leave."

"Dick."

"Do you really want to start this whole thing again?"

"Why don't you want me tagging along?" She argued, probably getting more determined the more he seemed uncaring.

"Why do you even want to tag along? And besides, you're a girl, and I'm a guy. And we'll both be alone in the woods without proper indoor plumbing or washing." He countered.

"I'm a girl?" she asked, suddenly serious. "Because I'm a _girl_? Oh, I'm sorry, do you think I can't handle the woods? Did I not just beat you in a battle? What? Here, let me just get my apron, I forgot it in the kitchen! _Because I'm a girl!_" She ranted.

"No no no, you're focusing on the negatives."

"All you said was negatives." She pointed out.

"Then you focused on the wrong ones. I'm a guy, and you're a girl. I said nothing about your skills, I'm sure you could handle yourself as well as I could, but we won't have proper plumbing, we don't have showers or anything, and there will be other people there who could make bad assumptions…"

"You do know we don't have to do those things holding hands, right? And who the fuck cares if two teenagers are together adventuring. Would you like people thinking something for less than a minute, then forgetting, or traveling by yourself for possibly weeks at a time, having your mental sanity being slowly sapped by isolation and constant attacks?"

He considered her point. "But still…"

"But still, what?"

"But still…"

"But you still don't want to admit you have no reasons and just don't want to lose?"

"I hate you."

"Love you too darling." She said sweetly, more for the sake of our audience than him, as when they were out of earshot she shot him a disgusted look.

The two walked into the pokemon center, filled to the brim with people anywhere from toddlers to the elderly. The sun was setting, and they would have to reserve rooms.

"Sorry sir and madam. There's only one open room tonight, but there's enough room for one of you two to sleep on the floor, or you know, you could always save space and just bunk together." Nurse Joy, or whatever her real name was, said with a wink pointed towards Delsin and Aponi.

"Didn't I tell you this was going to happen Aponi? People are making assumptions."

"Yeah. Goodness, of course we'll bunk together. Joy I hope these rooms are soundproof or something." Aponi said with a smug grin pointed at him, and grabbed his hand in a crushing link, though it probably looked cuteish to whoever else was looking.

Nurse Joy giggled, and handed Delsin the room cards with a wink, making him blush, and Aponi was laughing with sinister glee.

They retrieved Fatbat and Nincada from the Nurse shortly afterwards, and headed upstairs to where the rooms were at. Though there was hotels in most of the towns, all the pokemon centers had cheap motels in them for traveling trainers.

The two paused outside the room that they would be sharing for the night.

"So you're not going?" Delsin asked.

"Not unless you really want me to." Aponi responded, trying to keep her voice neutral.

"So you're really going to dump a huge decision like that on me?" He sighed out. He knew what he was going to say.

"Of course. I love making things more difficult for you."

"Sure whatever." He said, sounding resigned, and put the key into the lock and twisted.

The rooms were spartan bare, with only a bed, a lamp for lighting, a small nightstand, and a table. The bathrooms and showers were down the hallway, so that was one thing they wouldn't have to worry about on their first night.

"I call bed." Delsin said immediately upon entering the room.

"You fuck. Don't girls get the privilege of getting the bed in these situations?"

"Two things. Firstly, it's you who wanted to come along, and secondly, where's the whole "You should treat me equally, even if I'm a girl" thing?"

"If you don't give me the bed I'm going to make your life a living hell."

"I'm pretty sure it's already shaping up to be just that." He said sarcastically.

She elbowed passed him, and jumped onto the bed, drawing all the thick blankets to herself. "Mine."

He just sighed and laid out his sleeping bag on the floor.

He turned off the lamp and made sure the door was locked, and that they weren't missing anything. He opened the window, and let Fatbat out, as night hunting was its favorite thing to do. Nincada was standing guard at the foot of its owners bed, probably waiting for me to go to sleep.

He laid down, snuggling into his sleeping bag. He turned over, and saw Aponi glancing at him.

"Alone at night, in a locked room with a boy I just met today. Mother would be so proud."

"Your little buddy wouldn't let me within five feet of you right now."

"Yeah, he's a smart little guy."

The conversation dropped there, neither of them feeling the silence too awkward.

Five minutes passed, or what Delsin guessed to be five minutes.

"Hey Delsin."

"Hmm?"

"This is the end of the first day of our adventure. Only eleven more months until the Indigo league. Eleven months to get eight badges. Sounds easy enough right?" She sounded like she needed to be reassured.

"First time away from your parents for a extended amount of time?"

"Not even a whole week."

"And now you're going to be gone for almost a whole year."

Her silence was answer enough.

"Hey. I'm sorry about today. I guess I was just going through that when we were meeting up."

"So you're not always this moody and asshole-y?" She asked hopefully.

"Can't even get one touching moment with you."

"Too early for that shit."

As soon as she said that, they could hear rather loud bed creaking, and moaning coming from the other room.

"And on that note I think this is a good place to say goodnight."

"Ha. Night Delsin."

"Night." He said yawning.

Trying their best to mute out the commotion from the other room, they both fell asleep eventually.


End file.
